“At the start of my session we played a piece of Chai Ji “Xiao Ti Xie”, and I was stunned immediately. There is no emphasis on anything. Everything seems right: the smoothness (or boldness) of the music, the sense of solidity, the sharp focus in the stereo image – that is generously wide at the same time, the 3D feel of each instrument group, the rich and clean mid- and low-frequency range. There was no compression audible when it played loud, even though it is just a small flat cabinet, with a 200mm woofer. The vocals sound almost magical! I could hear the singer’s throat vibrate, sense subtle movements of mouth and tongue, and experienced a fascinating degree of realism and three-dimensionality. But even more important, the melody and harmony pulled on me, touching me with deep emotions. This is a fully digital system but it does not show any sign of ‘digital’ sound or harshness. On the contrary, I just wanted to ask if I could please listen to one more song.
When I then looked on the computer screen I was even more surprised: I saw the TIDAL app. I asked: Did we just listen to streaming? Yes. Was it standard lossless or MQA? Just ordinary standard… My God! At this moment I thought: there must be some magic trick inside.”
